NATO's main mission since its founding in 1949 was to maintain peace in Europe, and it has failed to do so. The war in Ukraine, therefore, is the failure of the Alliance and of the security architecture on the continent since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
What to do now with Russia and how to face the strategic challenge posed by China are questions that the allies must answer correctly if they want to live in peace. They do not have it easy and it seems that they are not doing it well either. They are in serious danger that the solutions they have on the table will not contribute to a safer world, but quite the opposite, that is, one divided into opposing blocs. On the one hand, liberal democracies and on the other, autocracies.
Javier Solana, Secretary General of the Alliance between 1995 and 1999, does not believe that "the world would be better if we divided it into opposing blocks, which is precisely what would be achieved with a NATO plus or global".
Solana participated last week in the International Seminar on Security and Defense that was held in Toledo and his opinion against an Alliance extended to the Indo-Pacific region contrasts with the one that the MEP and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt expressed a few days before in Brussels at a forum of the Association of European Journalists. “NATO must transform itself into a world alliance of liberal democracies,” he said. This implies a very active presence in Asia. "We have already abandoned Hong Kong to its fate and soon we will do so with Taiwan," she predicted.
Pascal Boniface, founder of the French Institute for International and Strategic Relations, warned in Toledo of the risk that NATO, encouraged by the United States, could become an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese organization. He believes that an alliance of democracies against tyrannies will not work because it is too simple for a world that is too complex.
To begin with, it would make it very difficult for allies to relate to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that do not see the world as a confrontation of good guys and bad guys. These countries do not see China and Russia as enemies or rivals and do not want to choose between them and the West.
Likewise, a global NATO could cause China to disengage from the West, two economic spheres that feed off each other. Their harmony and mutual benefit move the world. Without the collaboration of China, global challenges such as pandemics and the climate crisis cannot be faced.
"The disengagement would be terrible," admits Solana. Furthermore, adds Boniface, “it could lead to a clash of civilizations. China is not a strategic military threat. We will not see the Chinese army parade through Paris, but if we designate China as a military threat we will end up making it a military threat.
"It's not so much about NATO going to the Indo-Pacific as it is about preventing China from controlling vital infrastructure for Europe," says Paula Redondo, program coordinator at NATO's Office of Public Diplomacy. "China is in Europe -she adds- and she is not only selling consumer products".
Controlling the rhetoric is key and General Félix Sanz Roldán, former chief of the General Staff and the CNI, fears that the allies will lose their grip on the statement that closes the Madrid summit. “Everything was already said at last year's summit. I don't know what else can be added, ”he assured in Toledo.
The statement from that meeting in Brussels already identified Russia and China as rivals to face. Raising the tone of the alarm now, according to Sanz Roldán, means running the risk of not having the solution to turn it off later. This is what, in his opinion, happened in the weeks prior to the invasion of Ukraine: "Putin's threat was managed in such a way that no one was left out."
Now, Sanz Roldán maintains that "we have to be pragmatic", and this pragmatism involves going back to the origins, an Alliance focused on European security and crisis management.
Alliance strategists, especially in Washington, have long been considering the option of a NATO plus, that is, one capable of working with non-member countries. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, for example. All of them are invited to the Madrid summit. Ukraine would also be one of these new allies from outside.
"Europe is not interested in a bipolar world, divided between NATO, on the one hand, and China and Russia, on the other," says General José Enrique de Ayala, former chief of staff of Eurocorps, the embryo of what a one day it could be a joint armed force. He considers that this distribution condemns Europe to be hostage to the interests of the United States. “As long as the interests coincide – he explains – everything will be fine, but if not, the Pentagon will impose its own”.
Sanz Roland gives the example of the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan last August. Despite the fact that US troops were participating in a NATO mission, Washington unilaterally decided how and when to leave. "The blow to his military prestige and that of the entire Alliance was enormous," recalls the general.
NATO is an unequal organization. The European countries do not have the capacity to oppose the will of the US. They lack the necessary unity and strength. Strategic autonomy, which has been talked about so much since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is an old aspiration never realized.
It is true that unprecedented steps have been taken in recent months, but the ground to cover is immense. “Strategic autonomy goes beyond the military field –explains Ayala-. It involves industry, technology and even healthcare”.
Solana, even so, is optimistic. He does not know when, but he is convinced that "we are going to have European defense capacity" because "the EU has a rapid integration capacity in the face of crises and all the decisions it has taken favor integration".
Strategic autonomy will allow Europe to speak with its own voice in international affairs. It could even play the role of a superpower, that is, be a counterweight between the interests of the United States and those of the Russia-China axis.
This autonomy, in any case, will be marked by the political will of the Europeans themselves and the weapons they can manufacture. The EU is not left over from one or the other.
"Without our own production capacity -says Solana-, we won't be able to do anything." We have to see what we are going to buy from the United States and what we are going to manufacture ourselves. This is where our autonomy will lie.”
However, for Europe to be master of its own security, it needs much more than a common defense industry. As General Ayala points out, “it requires a common foreign policy and this is something very difficult to achieve because the perception of risks is very different among the EU partners”.
Poland, for example, is very comfortable within NATO, but not so much within the EU. She applauds that the Alliance reinforces the eastern flank to contain Russia, but does not consider it necessary for the EU to build a defensive pillar of its own.
"The Polish government has doubts about an improved relationship between the EU and NATO," says Bogdan Klich, a former Polish defense minister and now a senator from the opposition Civic Coalition. He recalls that “an institutional framework between NATO and the EU is lacking”, a tool that would facilitate Europe's strategic autonomy. Without it, it will be very difficult for the EU to fly alone.
Again, the necessary unity and political will are lacking. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) established the bases for a common defense, but thirty years and dozens of documents later the goal is still not reached.
Sanz Roldán believes that a new world order will emerge from the war in Ukraine. The United States will try to make it on the basis of a strengthened transatlantic relationship. China, however, will prefer a more polyhedral order, with a greater weight of the broad global south to the detriment of US hegemony.
Europe can play an important role in international relations if it manages to be the master of its own destiny, which implies being able to impose peace between the Atlantic and the Urals. To do this, he must get NATO to forget about Asia and reestablish a relationship of trust with Russia.
"For many years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, security in Europe was based on a relationship of trust with Russia," recalls Admiral Juan Francisco Martínez Núñez, Secretary General for Defense Policy. “There were liaison officers. Russian commanders participated in NATO meetings. Now it seems that we are doomed to build a new security architecture based on mistrust. It's a failure."
Peace will take time to return to Europe. Not only because the war in Ukraine drags on, but because there is no organization or country capable of starting to weave the diplomatic network that sustains a truce. The OSCE and the Council of Europe are obsolete. The UN has its hands tied with the Russian veto. NATO and the EU are judge and jury.
This is the reality that the allies must face at the Madrid summit and the one that they will surely ignore. Until they do, the Atlantic Alliance will not be an instrument for peace.
